Cat's Cradle, Volume 2
by frankannestein
Summary: After the fall of Thundera, Felline joined the ThunderCats on a journey to collect the Power Stones before Mumm-Ra. Along the way, she learned what it was to love. Now she has to learn what it means to be a friend, because the one she loved is still in love with someone else.
1. Walk the Cat Back

**_ThunderCats in its entirety © Warner Bros._**

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><p>Hard to admit that, not so long ago, she'd believed technology was nothing but a fairy tale. Too bad their cozy little family setting, of she and her sister sitting their lessons with Master Korvu while their father, Snow, reported for duty at Cat's Lair, had been a lie. She was free from her sheltered life, or so she liked to think, spared from the terrible fate that had befallen Lepra. Instead, she had become a proficient mechanic under Panthro's tutelage, and one of her best friends wasn't a living creature at all, but a robotic bear. One who, like all of his kind, liked to give gifts.<p>

Ro-Bear Bob called this one a gunblade.

Felline drew the weapon from its thigh holster. Folded up, it was slightly shorter than the laser rifle given to her by the old hound, Jorma, after Thundera fell. She'd learned to shoot by hunting skirlls. She'd learned to kill by battling lizards and their warmechs. Double-barreled, Ro-Bear Bob's sleek, silver and red gunblade packed twice the power of Jorma's pieced-together rifle.

It was also twice as heavy. She frowned down at it.

Its weight didn't affect her aim any, which was nice. WilyKat had started calling her and Tygra the crack shot twins. But to use the gunblade in close-quarters combat required a great deal of strength and muscle mass. Snow leopards as a rule were petite, and she was no exception, standing a whole head shorter than Lion-O. No, the difference between them was more than that now, for he'd grown when none of them were looking, tall enough to meet Cheetara eye to eye.

Which he tried not to do anymore.

Felline sighed. Now was not the time to be thinking about the tension that had ballooned between Lion-O, Cheetara, and Tygra, which was so thick it could suffocate. She had a job to do.

So, the switch. Her industrious little berbil friend had designed the rifle-to-sword mechanism to engage at pre-programmed flicks of her wrist, so that the blade would not deploy with random movements. She tried it, swinging the heavy weapon as self-consciously as ever.

With a faint hydraulic hiss, the blade arced from between the barrels. Two hinged arms unfolded like stork legs as it went, and locked into place. The thin blade was edged on one curved side, a delicately pointed saber rather than a broadsword.

She swung the gunblade again, one-handed as Lion-O and Tygra had taught her. Both princes had learned swordsmanship at an early age from Generals Panthro and Grune.

Grune. The sabertoothed cat who had turned traitor and was now dead. The only death of a fellow cat that Felline could condone, and think of without regret. He had betrayed King Claudus. He had brought Mumm-Ra and the lizard army down on Thundera. He had tried to kill Panthro. The collapsing Astral Plane had claimed his life. Let whatever judgment that awaited him in the afterlife deal with him. It was no longer her concern.

Her left arm poised to deflect imaginary incoming blows, Felline slashed and thrust at the empty air, feeling the burn in her arm, shoulder, and back. She then dexterously flipped the saber around in the right sequence to cause the blade to retract once more, which allowed it to fit snugly in its holster. Despite her late start in swordsmanship, the royal brothers were good teachers, practicing with her every day, and had given her the green light for taking the gunblade into battle.

Speaking of which.

Kneeling, Felline pricked her ears forward. She stared into the rocky, iron-gray canyon that cut wide grooves through the land on the west side of Berbil Village, opposite the unnamed fungal forest. She could hear the peculiar, buzzing hum of WilyKit and Kat's newest toys – a pair of matching hoverboards, one pink and purple and one blue and silver – coming closer. Sure enough, they appeared around a bend in the walls and swooped to a stop in the box canyon below.

A single hovercraft purred to a halt in front of them, preventing any escape. The curves and bends in the canyon were the only reason the twins hadn't been fired on yet; obviously thinking they had the advantage, the lizards didn't fire now. From Felline's vantage point, the craft looked like a snake's head, its plating shining like olive green scales in the sun. Since it was a scouting craft, only ten lizards manned its deck guns and turrets. And they were right on schedule.

"Looks like you're trapped," one of the lizards said in a dry, sibilant voice that echoed around the stark canyon walls.

"_Are_ we trapped?" WilyKit asked. Felline could only see the top of her pink and purple head, but she could hear the sly smile in the kitten's voice.

"Or are you?" WilyKat cheerfully added. He gestured skyward with a sharp claw.

Lion-O stood at the edge of the cliff, backed by the giant, washed-out circle of Third Earth's largest moon, Leo. His armor was as blue as his eyes, darker than the sky. He raised his left arm, and the sun winked off the pink facets of the Spirit Stone, embedded in the Gauntlet of Omens. From the Gauntlet, he drew the Sword of Omens, which lengthened in the same movement, ever attuned to its master's wants and needs.

"ThunderCats, _ho_!" he yelled, thrusting the Sword at the semi-cloudy sky.

The Sword growled, eerie and otherworldly, blazing with blue-white lightning. Heart swelling, Felline watched the play of light as if hypnotized.

Unfazed, a lizard below pointed a deck gun at the young king and began firing. Pretty much the response they'd all expected. Lion-O threw up his Gauntleted arm, and the Spirit Stone also awoke. A pink shield of light blossomed in front of him, deflecting the laser blasts. It wasn't effortless on Lion-O's part, Felline knew; fangs bared, straining against the force of the laser blasts that threatened to pummel him to the ground, he angled the shield so that one of the shots bounced off it, flew across the canyon, and struck an outcrop of rock on the opposite side.

Lizards hurled themselves to the deck as sharp-edged boulders crashed onto the hovercraft. It rocked like a ship on rough waters.

It would take more than some rocks to disable it, however. As ordered, Felline waited on her perch while Lion-O charged headlong down the cliff. Another gun began firing, but he caught each laser blast on the Sword's sliver blade. Like a lightning rod, the Sword collected the energy until it reached the red Stone in the hilt. The Eye of Thundera opened with a louder, more menacing growl. A red beam shot from it, slammed into the hovercraft, and lifted it clear off its repulsors, flinging the lizards across the canyon like popcorn from a pan. The craft landed with a crunch of metal on its side, plowing into the rock. Smoking and sparking slightly, it lay unmoving.

_Lizards are nothing if not resilient_, Felline thought with grudging admiration as they collected themselves, hissing in anger, and lined up to face the Thunderian king, rifles powering up. She leisurely stretched out on her stomach, propping herself on her elbows. She peered through the gunblade's sights and put her finger on the trigger. _Must be all the cartilage in their skeletons. Sure would be nice to be able to get up after a fall like that as if nothing happened_.

Although she could have, she didn't fire. The lizards lifted their flat heads, slender necks stretching, as a sound filled the canyon. It was the sound of speed.

In a blur of sun yellow, Cheetara zigzagged down the cliff as if gravity didn't apply to her. The stupefied lizards stood like statues when the cleric blew by them, ripping their guns from their long-fingered hands. While the last of them struck the ground, she stopped, their rifles in a pile at her feet, her fist on her shapely hip and a smile warming her pale face.

Felline counted the thuds of their bodies on rock. _One. Two. Three . . . four and five . . . nine . . . ah_. There was the tenth. He had climbed to a ledge above Cheetara and was preparing to shoot her in the back.

A shot ricocheted off the rock in front of him, sending him cartwheeling backward in a cloud of dust. Surprised, Felline looked up from the sights with a gasp; she hadn't done that. She glanced to her right. Tygra lifted his head, his paws wrapped around an equally fancy sniper rifle, courtesy of the berbils. He grinned and winked roguishly at Cheetara, whose answering smile was as radiant as a flame.

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><p><em><strong>AN:** Squee! I was so excited to start Volume 2 that I just couldn't wait to post this! I want to continue the journey with the ThunderCats so that someday, I can bring the story to a full close. I hope you'll come with me. X3  
><em>

_Greetings and Salutations, Dear Readers. Welcome to the second installment of my CC trilogy. Not much to say this time around other than - Please review! I want to hear what you think, even if it's bad, especially if it's good. I welcome constructive criticism. I also return all reviews, because, hey, they make me happy._

_Until next time,_

_I remain humbly, gleefully yours,_

_Anne_


	2. New Confederacies, part one

The lizards sat in a forlorn group, feet crossed at the ankle. They had not removed their helmets, their eyes hidden by the red lenses of their goggles, and their wide mouths were pinched shut, all of them. They waited with the stillness only known to predators. Most wore metal or leather bracers around skinny wrists, all had strapped a single suspender crosswise over pale, slightly sunken chests. Their mottled hides made Felline think of a swamp in the rain, blue and gray and green and brown.

She wondered what a female lizard looked like.

Finally, Cheetara spoke. "What are we gonna do with them?"

"We're gonna let them go," Lion-O answered quietly.

Felline smiled down at her feet.

Tygra, however, was unimpressed. "_Excuse_ me?"

"They've fought under Mumm-Ra long enough to know they don't want to live under him," he explained, approaching the lizards. "This mission is not just a threat to cats. If we don't unite against him, we'll fall together before him."

That sounded familiar. Had Lion-O said it before? Or had she heard it somewhere else? In the swordsman's town, perhaps. . . . Felline frowned, trying to remember, but one of the lizards, the only one who had spoken, showed his pointed teeth in a derisive laugh.

"Cats and lizards united together?" he rasped. "If that's your plan for victory, you are a fool."

"Perhaps," Lion-O answered coolly, but his face was stern. "Still, the choice is yours. Return to the battlefield, or return to your families."

Startled, the lizards broke into hisses and whispers.

"Lion-O, is it really that simple?" Felline murmured.

She'd said it quietly enough that Lion-O didn't have to answer if he didn't want to, and his silence spoke more loudly than words. He didn't know, but this was the path he'd chosen, and he was prepared to deal with the consequences, good or bad.

Probably guessing some of this, the lizards' commander stood, as tall as the cat king but with wider haunches, stooped and tailed. He frowned at Lion-O, and then turned to his men with a reptilian smile. "Let's go home," he said.

Wordless, the other lizards stood and shuffled off, and with no thanks, the lizard commander followed them.

Felline let out a breath, tension flowing out of her. It had worked.

"You still haven't given up the idea that you can turn the lizards good just by cutting them a break," Tygra snarled.

"You saw what happened after we won the Spirit Stone," Lion-O said. "Mass desertions in the lizard army. This isn't their war. They don't even know what they're fighting for."

He finished in a low voice, pensive. He looked tired, the fur beneath his eyes shadowed faintly gray.

"All I know is what I'm fighting for," Tygra said, but he wasn't talking to his brother anymore.

Cheetara smiled at him. "That reminds me," she said playfully. "Thanks for watching my back."

She leaned in and kissed his cheek.

"Well, your back's real easy to watch," Tygra said.

_Oh, not this, again_. Felline's ears drooped. Whenever those two got near each other, they seemed to forget that anyone else existed. It had been bad enough to endure Cheetara's freedom of affection, with all her touches and kisses for Lion-O, but Tygra had no sense of privacy, either. If Felline had to listen to another of his cheesy lines, prince or not –

"Think I'm gonna hack up a hairball," Kat announced. He and his sister looked about as nauseated as Felline felt. She crossed her arms and nodded agreement. Lion-O's lower lip was pushed out in a very familiar pout, but he, too, looked nothing short of disgusted.

Tygra cleared his throat into his fist, which didn't hide his grin. "Sorry," he said, sounding anything but.

Lion-O glared at him for two seconds before he broke out in a wide smile. "Don't be. I'm happy for both of you."

The cleric and the prince glanced at each other, and both of their faces cleared as they smiled at their king.

"It means a lot to hear you say that," Tygra said sincerely.

"How about we get back to the Berbil Village and check in on Panthro?" Lion-O went on, speaking to the twins, but his right paw closed around Felline's upper arm. She glanced sidelong at her friend, but could only see him wearing the same smile.

"I think that's a good idea," she said gamely.

In unison, the kittens rose into the air, feet braced wide and paws lifted. "Yeah!" WilyKit said, grinning. "If those furry little bears can make these hoverboards, I can't wait to see what they do with Panthro's new arms!"

They surfed off, leaving the air shimmering in their wake. The four adults followed on foot, taking a barely-discernible trail through the safer parts of the canyon. Felline walked with Lion-O, lengthening her shorter strides to his out of habit.

"Do you really think they can put Panthro back together?" he asked.

Felline lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Have you ever heard a berbil lie? I don't think they _can_."

"Except by omission," he reminded her.

"Oh, yeah. I don't see why they would say they could if they couldn't, though," she returned. "Besides, Panthro seemed pretty expectant this morning. Can't hurt to let them try."

"True," he said.

Berbil Village opened before them in an array of candy colors, mushrooms glistening, the pink bowers arching high overhead, the scent of fruit wafting through the gap between the canyon walls. Felline inhaled, a peace she hadn't known in a long time infusing her. A peace that, for a while, had been disrupted by the tom at her side. It wasn't like that anymore. She would always think him handsome, not too tall, strong in a way that appealed to her, his presence as bright as his red mane. He had a lion's maleness that couldn't be ignored. But he was her friend now. They talked, and laughed, and spent time together, and once she stopped hoping for – no, _expecting_ more from him than he could give, she found she could treasure their friendship, and that it was more precious than any kittenish crush.

As they neared the great golden structure that served the berbils as a hospital and workshop, she broke into a jog, eager to see the first cat that had seen real worth in her. Gruff, angry Panthro, gray as a thundercloud and about as soft as rusty nails – they wouldn't have made it this far without him.

"_You call these arms_?!" she heard him snarl in disbelief.

"Uh-oh." Felline dashed the last few feet across the smooth, manicured lawn. The metal door irised open as she neared it and she bounded through, grabbing the railing at the top of the entrance staircase to stop herself from toppling to the floor below.

"Berbil arms," Ro-Bear Bill explained in his canned, emotionless voice.

Felline tried to hold back a giggle, but it escaped in a kind of sneeze. Panthro scowled at her, his good eye burning. Her tail flicked in suppressed amusement.

Lion-O stepped through right behind her. "How's it goin', Panthro?" he called as Felline bounded down the staircase. She approached the reclined metal chair cautiously, stepping over the cables and wires attached to it that snaked across the shiny golden floor. Like everything else the berbils manufactured, it was made for function, not comfort, but Panthro hadn't complained about it yet. He was too preoccupied with his new arms.

"How does it _look_ like it's goin'?" he snapped, holding up a very large, very round, very furry, very pink berbil paw. It was spinning like a top about to fall, apparently responding to stimuli but not Panthro's will. He clenched his jaw so hard Felline could hear the molars grinding.

"Aw, they're not so bad," Lion-O said soothingly, but he ruined it by smirking. "In fact, they're kind of adorable."

"Are you _trying_ to make me mad?" Panthro growled, the line between his bushy brows so sharp it might have been put there by a knife.

"Sorry." Smiling sheepishly, Lion-O changed the subject. "Good news. Another successful ambush. If things keep going this way, they won't have an army to stop us from finding the next Stone."

Once she was sure Panthro wasn't going to take a swipe at her, Felline took the unresponsive paw in her own, examining the four berbil claws, the palm and wrist, and then the servos and connectors wired into the stumps of his arms. Bill and his friends had done a good job melding flesh with machinery, even if they had been lacking a bit in design imagination. Bill tucked his hard little head under her elbow, onyx eyes glittering as he, too, examined their work.

"Just don't win the war before I have a chance to get a few more licks in," Panthro said, calmer now that Felline was there. The berbils listened to her, when they tended to go their own way and consult no one. His right paw spun and beckoned stupidly while she probed at the left. A tick started in his temple. "Can somebody please get these _things_ off of me?!" he roared, sending the berbils running like frightened ants, arms in the air, faces blank.

"Ow!" Felline cried, slapping her paws over her sensitive ears, but Panthro glared at her, mismatched eyes deranged, as if daring her to ask him to apologize. "All right, all right, I'm on it, you old curmudgeon. Keep your fur on."

"Hey, I've _earned_ it," he retorted, relaxing against the hard, table-like chair, and then set his square jaw and muttered, "And I'm not that old."

Grinning, she strapped her goggles into place and grabbed a handheld blowtorch. If he was feeling well enough to bluster like that, then he was going to be fine. She didn't notice when Lion-O left her to her work, because she was already asking the berbils for the parts she would need to fix their big friend. Ro-Bear Bella began drafting new blueprints based on Felline's requests.

By the time Cheshire, the tiny second moon, reached its zenith, Felline and the berbils had made real headway in fabricating a new pair of arms. She closed up the workshop after the little bears had rolled off to their homes, turning out the lights over Panthro. The general was snoring softly, covered by a thin blanket, Snarf curled up on his chest. The petcat's tasseled ears twitched along with his whiskers as he dreamed. He'd taken it upon himself to care for Panthro in spite of Panthro's threats and curses, and only left him to bring food. He was probably as exhausted as the rest of them.

Silently, Felline let herself into the night. She stretched until her back popped. The village was empty – she didn't know if the berbils slept, per se, but she knew they would not emerge until the first rays of sun touched the candyfruit orchards. She set off toward the spherical building loaned to the ThunderCats as their sleeping quarters while the Tank was in the shop getting a rather extensive overhaul.

She saw a lone figure standing outside the door and thought it might be Lion-O, so she quickened her pace. Sometimes, he liked to take walks in the moonlight, not to talk, but to think, an exercise she was well suited for. The figure turned out to be Cheetara, however.

"How is he?" she asked quietly, so that Felline knew the kittens must already be asleep inside.

"Out cold." Felline rubbed her tired eyes. "If I don't go with you tomorrow, we should be able to finish his arms."

"That's wonderful news!" Cheetara tucked a lock of her hair behind a pointed ear. "We just have to keep up the pressure, and more battalions will surrender. Tygra thinks the plan will work, even if he won't admit it."

"Mmm," Felline agreed noncommittally. She bit her lip. "Cheetara? Can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can," Cheetara said. She waited, polite as always, while Felline screwed up her courage.

"Why Tygra?"

Cheetara's lips parted and her sunset eyes widened, but she didn't say anything. Felline could feel the blood rising in her cheeks.

"Look, I know it's none of my business," she sighed. "I don't necessarily want to know – but – it's just –" She stopped.

"You're confused," Cheetara finished for her in a low voice.

Felline nodded. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

"No, it's my fault." It was Cheetara's turn to sigh. "I wasn't very clear with my feelings and caused a lot of trouble. Believe me when I say that my heart has always belonged to Tygra. From when we were cubs. Do you know what it takes to enter the clerisy?"

"No," Felline said, startled at the sudden change in topic. "I imagine there's some sort of test."

"Yes. And I failed," Cheetara said. "I had no clan, you see. Nowhere to go. Tygra showed me an act of kindness that enabled me to pass Jaga's second trial. I never forgot it, or him."

As she spoke, the same kind of love suffused her face that Felline remembered seeing on Lepra's. Lepra's attachment to the farmer Rachan then was as incomprehensible as Cheetara's behavior to Lion-O, and her choice of Tygra, was now. Felline realized that she herself could never have been in love, because, unlike her sister and her friend, she was most concerned with her own survival and feelings rather than someone else's. She simply hadn't been given the chance to grow that way. War could do that.

"I can't imagine what it would be like not to have a clan," she said softly. "My family was small, but it was mine. Sometimes I don't believe they're gone."

"The ThunderCats are my clan now," Cheetara said, smiling. "As we are yours. Out of great evil can come great good."

"True." She hesitated. "Have you spoken to Lion-O about any of this?"

"I don't think that's necessary," Cheetara said, raising her eyebrows. They were walking on thin ice now, both of them struggling not to get upset, painful and awkward though the conversation was.

"Maybe not," Felline said. She should drop it, she knew, but she could still feel Lion-O's fingers around her arm, as tight as if he was drowning and she was his only anchor above rough water. "But I know what it's like to be last. It's something you're born with when you have an older sister. Or brother. That's all."

Cheetara summoned a smile from somewhere. "Thank you for your advice."

She turned to go in, but she lightly touched one of Felline's paws as she did. A touch could say more than words. Relieved, Felline followed her friend inside.

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><p><em><strong>AN:** Welcome, Dear Readers! Longer than usual chapter. Hope you enjoyed. :3_

_Just a little author-ness here . . . There is a lot in this episode that I can't show because Felline can't and shouldn't be everywhere at once. I regretted that she couldn't hear what Cheetara said to Tygra in the last episode, because I thought it was really good. I had to figure out another way to get her involved without actually sticking her in the middle of private conversations. I'm sort of feeling my way forward here, so I hope you'll bear with me. X3_

_Reviewer Thanks! **KelseyAlicia** (Squee, first review! Thank you!), **Heart of the Demons** (Yes, sir! Thank you!), **Momochan77** (So happy you liked it. :3 Thank you!), **Mooncloudpanther** (D'aww, you're buttering me up, aren't you? heehee. Thankies), **The Night Whisperer** (w00t, excellent! Thank you so much!), **Darwin** (*huggles* Thank you so much!), **Blacktiger93** (YAY, glad you found it. Thank you!), and **CaptainCommanderLucy** (Thanks!)._

_Ever Yours,_

_Anne_


	3. New Confederacies, part two

True to her word, Felline saw Cheetara and the others off for their next ambush and then sequestered herself in the workshop with her four-berbil team, Snarf, and Panthro. Lion-O had seemed more preoccupied than usual; he wouldn't miss her today.

The finished arms were too heavy for Felline to lift. She stepped aside and let the mechanically-enhanced berbils lock them into the modified sockets. Bella had outdone herself. A black material that she called _prene_, soft to the touch but as strong as steel, stretched over the mechanisms like skin, giving the impression that Panthro had pulled on a pair of long gloves. The paws were reinforced with jointed metal gauntlets, the elbows, wrists, and fingers appropriately feline. He even had a cat's curved claws again.

They all stepped back, watching expectantly. Nothing happened.

"I can't move them," Panthro said.

"Here." Felline knelt and opened a panel in the back of one paw. She reached in with her petite fingers and reseated a few fuses. "Try now."

"All right," he rumbled. The arm jerked. "Whoa – they're heavy!"

"Just a second. All we need to do is make the adjustments –" she started, but Bill had already popped the panel on the other arm and started soldering. After a moment, he raised his head.

"Ro-Bear Bill made adjustments to new arms," the berbil buzzed, his mouth flashing blue with each word.

"The only adjustment I care about is making sure they don't look completely ridiculous," Panthro informed him with a scowl. It was clear he hadn't forgiven the berbils for yesterday's disaster.

Bill, however, calmly tightened a screw and then let go.

Panthro stood, taking the weight of the new arms in his shoulders. Real muscle rippled as he lifted his right paw and examined it from its metallic claws to its knuckle spikes. One side of his mouth lifted in a grin.

_Nyaa_, Snarf breathed, green eyes wide.

Felline privately agreed with him. The arms looked real, their movement smooth and organic, but with them, Panthro was even more impressive and deadly. And he was loving it.

"Hmph," he said in appreciation, raising his new fists. "Not too bad."

He threw a punch. A second one. Felline listened to the well-tuned whine of actuators, the hiss of hydraulics.

The right paw spun in a circle. Panthro had time for a look of surprise before his own arm hauled off and punched him in the face. The left joined in, each paw trying to outdo the other in a contest to break his jaw.

"By the Great Sky Cat's Claws, make it stop!" he managed between blows. "Turn – them – _off_!"

But they couldn't help him. Felline and the berbils dove for cover as the arms began extending like putty. Now she could see what Bella had meant about the prene's strength; no matter how far the fists whizzed through the workshop, smashing through equipment like an elephant in a china store, the black material simply stretched with them without tearing. Panthro stumbled helplessly around the room, the swearing eye of a hard-hitting storm.

"Further adjustments needed," Bill said thoughtfully from his spot beneath a workbench. Speechless, Felline stared at him, and then covered her head with her arms as crackling wires rained down on her.

..::~*~::..

"Maybe I should just learn to eat with my feet," Panthro said waspishly. It was the first thing he'd said in an hour.

He was back in the chair, but he never would have gotten into it willingly; an accidental blow from one of the arms had knocked him unconscious, and at the sudden cease of nerve impulses from his brain, the arms had fallen limp, which allowed the berbils to move him safely. They'd crunched matter-of-factly around the workshop, cleaning up the mess, while Felline and a couple of assistants feverishly worked to reprogram the arms before he woke.

"Panthro not worry," Bill said. He was either brave or incapable of feeling anything less than gut-wrenching terror. Felline suspected the latter. "Berbils make adjustments. Arms all fixed."

"Hmph," Panthro said again. He lifted an arm. Waved it. Made a fist. When nothing further happened, he grinned. "Adjustments are lookin' good."

Then he stood up and slammed the fist into the metal floor, shaking it so hard that Felline actually lost her footing and grabbed the chair before she could fall. The fist pulverized the metal plating, creating a sizeable crater, and Panthro hadn't broken a sweat.

"Lookin' good," Bill said, as if all his friends made a habit of gouging holes in his floor. The phrase was a sort of code between him and the big cat since the day they'd brought the little bear back to life. When Panthro stood up and smiled, slamming the paws together with a proud sort of finality, Felline knew they'd been forgiven.

Just then, WilyKat and Kit came running into the workshop, bringing with them the cool scent of night and two sweaty faces.

"Hey," Felline greeted, and then frowned. The kittens were panting, as if they'd run a long way.

"You guys back already?" Panthro rumbled.

"It's Lion-O," Kit said.

That was all she said, but Panthro picked up on her anxiety right away. "Somebody fuel up my Tank!" he bellowed.

"Berbils make adjustments to Tank, too," Bill told him.

The berbils ushered them outside. A steady, throaty rumble greeted them. Speechless, Panthro and Felline stared at what had once been the ThunderTank.

They could see it what was left of it, barely, which was the cockpit and front arms. It was dwarfed by the addition of what looked like another Tank, as if it had partly swallowed the first one, making the whole vehicle three times its original size. It was huge. It was mean. It was armed to the teeth.

"Lookin' _good_," Panthro purred.

..::~*~::..

"What happened out there tonight, Kit?" Felline asked as a handful of berbils drove the Tank into the canyons, the way lit blue by all three moons. The berbils had installed enough seats in the enlarged cockpit for all of the cats to claim one, a decided improvement.

"They're fighting," Kat said disgustedly before his sister could answer.

"Well, yeah, the lizards –"

"_No_," he interrupted, sticking his small, pugnacious face close to hers. "_Each other_."

"We saw the same lizards we convinced to desert earlier," WilyKit explained, tucked into a ball in one of the seats. Her big, golden eyes were too old for her face. "Tygra said they must've been picked up by their own army."

"They were prisoners. Lion-O wanted to save them –" WilyKat said, picking up the narrative.

"– but Tygra and Cheetara said it was too dangerous to save lizards who could turn on us tomorrow," Kit added.

"He was mad that Cheetara sided with Tygra," Kat finished, throwing up his paws. "Then he sent us back."

"He said he was going to do it alone," WilyKit said to her knees.

Panthro and Felline exchanged a glance that showed how well each of them understood what the kittens hadn't said. In spite of urging Cheetara to speak with Lion-O, Felline seriously doubted the cleric would have brought it up on the battlefield. Which meant, of course, that Lion-O had pushed the issue.

Felline sighed sadly. Lion-O had loved Cheetara, had believed that she'd chosen him. They _all_ had. Everything she'd said, everything she'd done, the way that her eyes were always on him – Cheetara had chosen Lion-O. But she hadn't. She'd chosen Tygra. Tygra's betrayal was only half of it; the other half, Cheetara's betrayal. Felline didn't see Lion-O getting over it any time soon. Not when their presence and openly-shown love for each other was a constant reminder of how they'd played him, day after day.

He would never be happy for them.

"Don't you worry," Panthro said reassuringly, patting Kit's head with surprising gentleness, considering he couldn't feel his paws anymore. "We're goin' to help."

"Right," the kitten said, sitting up a little straighter. If she scrubbed an arm under her nose, no one let on they noticed.

They saw the battle long before they were close enough to do anything about it. The light from laser blasts striking the Spirit Stone flashed through the dark like fireworks.

"What is that?" Felline breathed, squinting through the windshield. Dark shapes battled across the fading glow, two of them frighteningly tall. "_Who_ is that?"

"Magnify," one of the berbils buzzed. He touched the screen in front of him a few times, and then the windows all flickered, proving them to be screens as well. The battle bloomed across them, large as life.

"A jackalman," Panthro said darkly.

He was tall, his fur red-orange and cream, his narrow muzzle split in a maniacal grin that put all of his short, sharp fangs on display. Yellow and red eyes rolled for a moment before closing. Nostrils flared, the canine scented the night. Then he threw up a fist and Tygra fizzled into view. Another punch sent the tiger to the ground. Quickly for an animal so big, the jackalman seized Tygra's whip and bound his arms with it. Then he stood behind the kneeling Thunderian prince, laughing soundlessly, an ax pointed at the back of his prisoner's head.

There was no sign of the captured lizards.

"All right, let's get their attention," Panthro said. He leaned over the berbil in the pilot's seat and began priming the weapons over her head. "Here, and here."

"Roger," said the berbil in the copilot's seat.

The Tank thundered over another few miles. Meanwhile, the screens played out their soundless drama.

Slithe and the jeering jackalman seemed to be calling for a surrender, but Lion-O was having none of it – until Cheetara broke off her attack with a monstrous, white-maned monkey and threw Viragor's staff to the ground. Lion-O stared at her, mouth open in horror, and while he was distracted Slithe brought both knobby fists down on the back of his head. Lion-O dropped like a stone.

The monkey's thick arms snaked out and scooped Cheetara into a neck-breaking headlock. She looked like a stick figure crushed to his massive, hairless chest. Slithe and the jackalman lifted their axes.

Panthro fired.

He couldn't aim directly at Mumm-Ra's generals, but he got close enough to cause the monkey to release Cheetara. Four missiles struck the rocks, separating their friends from the other animals. When the dust cleared, it revealed Cheetara and Tygra leaning protectively over the obviously disoriented Lion-O. Ro-Bear Bethany stomped on the accelerator, and the Tank growled up on its back treads, clearing the last hill before the battlefield. She brought it to a stop. Felline was sorely tempted to tell her to drive over Slithe's foul body, but there wasn't enough room to maneuver in the canyon. Bethany couldn't terminate him without endangering their friends.

Panthro climbed to the top hatch and let himself into the night. The outer cameras relayed his image to the screens inside. The big cat stood atop his baby and raised his new arms with a burst of pressurized water vapor.

The paws extended, shooting out like cannonballs, and landed a single punch on the monkey, the jackalman, and the lizard, knocking each one out cold.

"You'll get plenty more chances to tangle with these beasts, now get in!" he yelled at Lion-O.

Ro-Bear Brandon lowered the cargo doors in back, Cheetara, Tygra, and Lion-O sprinted aboard, and Bethany tore up the ground with the treads as she roughly turned the Tank. Felline hoped she'd hit Mumm-Ra's generals on the way by, but she could see them in the triple moonlight, furiously gathering themselves together as the ThunderCats made their escape.

"Don't get so down, kid," Panthro rumbled once everyone was gathered in the cockpit, sounding as if he himself had never been depressed a day in his life. He slung a brotherly arm around Lion-O's shoulders. "You only lost the battle, not the war."

"With these new generals, their army will be stronger than ever," Lion-O dully told his feet.

Which meant that all of their work these past few weeks had been for nothing. Panthro may have been fixed, made whole after the horrible accident that had taken his arms, but they were no closer to getting the next Stone than before.

"We'll get through this," Panthro assured him, refusing to let anything dampen his euphoria. "We just have to stick together."

Felline glanced back long enough to see how silently and stiffly Lion-O, his brother, and Cheetara stood, the scowling Lion-O not meeting anyone's eye. Misgivings uncoiled in her middle. She knew that scowl.

Sticking together might be the one thing that they couldn't do.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN:** Look at that, slightly longer chapter parts than usual, and the first episode is done. :3 Yay, me! Actually, it's only because so much of the ep dealt with scenes on the Mumm-Ra end . . . and I LOVED the introductions of Kaynar and Addicus and am super sad I had to cut them out. Sigh. Next chapter should make up for that. *wiggles eyebrows*_

_By the way, shameless plug (in case anyone reading this didn't see it): I wrote and published a giftfic for Mooncloudpanther. __おまけ劇場 (Bonus Theater): Ruins We Call Home. It was fun to do something a little different. :3 There may be more of those in the future!_

_Reviewer Thanks! Actually, I'm just going to put a blanket thank-you out this time because so many of you had the same reaction: That you liked the girl talk between Felline and Cheetara. I was honestly (and pleasantly) surprised. I'd been avoiding the typical "girl talk" because I can't stand stories that either don't have enough women, or only have women who talk to each other simply to be talking about the men in their lives. So unrealistic! But, in this case, I took a gamble, and I'm super grateful you liked it. Thank you, all of you, for the reviews! :3 **Heart of the Demons**, **Mooncloudpanther**, **The Night Whisperer**, **Darwin**, **KelseyAlicia**, **Momochan77**, **CaptainCommanderLucy**, **keykeybaby6**,** Seeds of Destruction**, and** Blacktiger93**._

_Yours,_

_Anne_


	4. Judgment Day, part one

"What are you doing? I thought you were going hunting."

Felline jumped. Lion-O leaned into the motorcycle, crossing his arms on the edge of the open cockpit.

"I am," she said from inside the cockpit. She tried again, and again unsuccessfully, to start the engine. The cycle stayed dark and quiet around her.

"What I meant was, why are you taking this?" he asked, amused. "You've never done that before."

"The herds moved last night," she explained, giving up for the moment so she could give him her full attention. "I have to go about fifteen miles west if I want to catch up to them."

He stood up, amusement gone. "Why doesn't Cheetara go?"

_Cheetara_? Felline stared at him. He wasn't even doing her the courtesy of looking at her while he spoke. _Seriously_? Her ears flattened. She was about done with him taking his feelings out on everyone. _She_ hadn't done anything wrong, so why was he continually punishing her?

"It's my turn to hunt," she snapped. "And since I'm not a cleric, Tygra said I could take his cycle. Now, if you're done, we've got a couple of hungry cubs waiting on me, so . . ."

Dismissing him, she sat forward, grasped the yoke, and squeezed the throttle as she'd been told. Nothing happened.

"What am I doing wrong?" she cried in frustration. She knew she had the sequence right. It wasn't even that hard! The yoke, however, remained stubbornly locked in place. She resisted the urge to bang her forehead into it.

"Well, it helps if you have one of these," Lion-O said. He dangled something in front of her nose. A key. "When I saw you leave without it I followed you," he said, blue eyes apologetic.

"Oh. Thanks." She went to grab it, but he held it out of reach.

"Scoot up," he said. He put a paw between her shoulder blades and the other against the seat, and then pushed as if prying something open, mashing her against the front console.

"Wait, what are you doing? There isn't enough room for two cats in here!" she squeaked.

"Sure there is." In a flash, he vaulted inside, wiggling in behind her.

It was a tight fit. Face flaming, Felline hunched over the unresponsive yoke. His knees kinked up under her elbows, his hard thighs clamped on her hips. She curled her tail around her waist, wishing she could squeeze until she disappeared.

"Here, lean back," he said, pulling on her shoulder, sounding supremely unfazed by the way they were folded in and around each other.

_That's because he's still in love with _her _and doesn't see _you _that way, dolt. And you don't see him that way, either_!

"What for?" she asked her lap, and was grateful for how even her voice sounded, when she couldn't seem to catch her breath. She didn't have a lot of experience around toms, but she was pretty sure this much contact wasn't normal between friends.

"The seat is too far back for you," he said reasonably. "If you lean against me, you should be close enough for your tiny feet to reach the pedals."

"You have _got_ to be kidding." But she did as asked, slowly, until the hardness of his armor pressed into her back. He was right, unfortunately. The seat reclined and wasn't adjustable; she'd been hoping to drive by holding herself forward with the yoke, which would have made steering difficult, but it wasn't like she'd been willing to let that stop her.

"Here." The key materialized by her left cheek.

She took it, inserted it into the ignition lock, started the engine, and then let out a shaky breath as the yoke lifted and the cockpit sealed over their heads. The screens flickered to life, showing the pre-dawn plains and the smudge of a storm on the eastern horizon. To the north, wide, gray cliffs cut swaths of blackness across the stars. Panthro had parked the Tank at the feet of one of those cliffs. Once again, they'd left Berbil Village behind, and were on their own for food. "Thanks. Now tell me why you're really doing this."

"Uh . . ." Now he sounded embarrassed. He shifted under her. "I'm hungry?"

"Nice try," she said, but she couldn't stop a smile that he wouldn't see. "Hold on to something."

She closed her fingers on the throttle and released the clutch. The motorcycle growled into motion, zooming smoothly from its hangar under the ThunderTank's right paw into darkness, its headlight so bright that it made the screens glow.

..::~*~::..

Felline and Lion-O spread out a tarp beneath the strengthening sun. Together, they piled their morning's gains on it: various fish from the river, courtesy of Lion-O, and a brace of jackelopes from Felline's foray into the plains. They set to work cleaning and butchering the jackelopes, which were almost as big as chib-chibs, discarding their racks and skins. Her stomach growled.

"That should do it," she said, pushing a loose strand of hair out of her face with the back of her arm. The smell of blood would draw other predators if the sun got much hotter. Already flies were gathering, buzzing around them. "Let's get washed up and then we can head back."

"Sure," he said.

But he made no move to secure the load of meat to the cycle and instead crouched in front of it, staring at nothing.

"Hey," she said. "Thanks for your help today. I couldn't have gotten here without you."

He smiled as if embarrassed. "Yeah, well, I wish the others appreciated what I do as much."

By "the others," she knew he meant Tygra and Cheetara. Even though she'd been about to head for the river, she crouched next to him. "It does seem like they're being harder on you than usual."

A flash of blue, there and gone, but she saw the surprised gratitude in his eyes. "She's determined to stick with _him_ no matter what," he said sullenly, all the hurt resurfacing in an instant. "She was willing to surrender to Slithe, Addicus, and Kaynar rather than help me win, all because they threatened to kill Tygra."

Addicus, the monkey, and Kaynar, the jackalman. Mumm-Ra's new generals. He went on. "If we'd just _fought_, we would have saved him! And Tygra. After what we went through in the Astral Plane, I thought we'd finally reached an understanding. I thought . . ." He shook his head with a snarl and stood up. "I thought that brothers looked out for each other, but I guess I was wrong."

"I probably shouldn't say this, but I agree with you," Felline said with a sigh.

"You do?"

"Well, yeah." Shrugging, she stood. "He's been kind of inconsiderate of you since he got what he wanted. I don't think he's doing it on purpose, but that doesn't make it right."

Lion-O snorted. "That's because he's a big –"

"That doesn't mean your behavior has been exemplary, Your Majesty," she interrupted.

He looked as if she'd slapped him. "Oh, so _you're _going to attack me now?"

"Yes. I'm older than you."

"Only by a year," he quickly protested. "And I'm not even sure I believe you. I mean, come on. Look at you." Then he grinned, his natural playfulness asserting itself. Tygra had gotten that part right, at least.

It had been a long time since she'd last done it, but she gave him her best Stink Eye. He visibly shrank from her. Playfulness was not a kingly trait – she couldn't imagine Claudus acting like an overgrown cub – so where on Third Earth had Lion-O gotten it? "Nobody's very happy right now. There's this thing called morale; we don't have it. There are eight of us packed into a very small space. We're fighting for our lives and for the planet. We're hungry. We're tired. We're homeless. We need to be able to trust you to lead us right, so maybe you could stop taking shots at Cheetara and Tygra for a while. Nothing you say is going to change how they feel about each other. Hasn't Cheetara already apologized for, well, flirting with you this whole time?"

"I don't know if you'd call it an apology," he muttered, and began gathering the edges of the tarp together. "Know what she told me? She said Jaga ordered her to keep an eye on me. That's why she's here. Not because of _me_, but because I'm the king."

Felline winced. "I'm sure that's only part of it," she said softly.

"Yeah. And the other part is that her heart belongs to Tygra." Angrily, he hefted the bundle onto the back of the cycle and lashed it into place. Then he sighed. "Maybe you're right. Father always said I was ruled by emotion."

He grinned at her over the cycle. "I can't promise anything, but I'll try. Our goal is the Stones, right?"

"Right," she said. Then she paused, wondering how far he would let her go as far as advice was concerned. "You know, it's all right to ask for help sometimes."

She was about to head to the river for that much-needed washing when Lion-O called after her. "Like you trying to drive a cycle too big for you without asking for help?"

She blushed; she could feel it. "I would have been fine."

"Uh, huh." He gave her a half-lidded stare. "On the way back, try to remember that you have brakes."

"Excuse me?"

"I thought we were gonna die when you almost crashed us into that tree," he said. "And found every gopher hole from there to here."

"I did not!"

"Maybe you should get your eyes checked, then. Or you could just let me drive."

Let him drive? There was no way they could sit the other way in the cycle – she'd suffocate. Felline spluttered at him for a moment, but when he started laughing, it dawned on her that he was teasing her. She turned on her heel and stomped away. Between Tygra and Lion-O, it was clear neither one had a respectful bone in their bodies. _Toms_! If they were all this impossible, she was better off hunting alone from now on.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN:** Phew! I feel like I'm treading into dangerous territory here as the series swings back on itself and really starts to raise the stakes. I have to be very, very, very careful in their relationship at this point. Hope I'm doing all right. *crosses fingers*_

_Second shameless plug! My second giftfic is published, this one for WAR-Operative. __おまけ劇場 (Bonus Theater): Fall of the Empire. Check it out, please?_

_Reviewer Thanks! Because you guys are the BEST. **The Night Whisperer** (Haha! I think that was a little bit of author insert, but I'm glad you're with me! Thank you :3), **CaptainCommanderLucy** (Thank you!), **Heart of the Demons** (SWEET, thank you!), **Blacktiger93** (Thank you! :3), **Momochan77** (Hee, me too! Thank you!), **KelseyAlicia** (Thank you!), **Mooncloudpanther** (Yeah, that was kind of disappointing, wasn't it? Oh, well. Thankies), and **AllHailMedusa** (Ch1: I completely agree. I mean, I know why they did, but it felt cheap. Ch2: I'm really surprised that people liked that, haha! Ch3: I agree with this, too. Thank you very much for the reviews!)._

_Ever Yours,_

_Anne_


	5. Judgment Day, part two

Daylight revealed a harsh place. The cliffs soared above the ThunderTank, twisted, wind-blasted trees clinging to life in whatever crevice they could find. Springy, green moss prevailed, especially in the spray from the river. It was too rocky for grass, however, except at the very top, which was heavily forested.

"How about we fire up the Book of Omens, Panthro?" Lion-O asked heartily. Apparently, a full belly and a morning away had done wonders to improve his mood. He grinned and rubbed his paws together. "Find out where that next Stone is."

Felline plopped cross-legged in a seat, watching as Panthro powered up the navigation device. The jewel in the Book's cover lit up from within. The red globe appeared above it, and the compass flared to life and pointed –

"_Up_?" Panthro asked, startled. Everyone tilted their heads back and stared at the column of light, straight as an arrow, that shone above the Book. Panthro's square jaw tightened the way it always did when he was irritated. "How can it be _up_?"

"I don't know," Lion-O said, still hearty, "but if the Book says the Stone is up, then that's where we're going."

He leaned forward and tapped at the console. All of the screens lit up and showed a mosaic of their surroundings. Bright blue sky, Leo and Cheshire sharing a slow, misty dance across it, and the cliffs.

The _cliffs_?

Felline gazed openmouthed at the perpendicular rock face. What looked like a road had been roughly carved into its side, a square-edged, three-sided tunnel, open to the wind and a sheer drop on the fourth. It rose slowly and disappeared around a corner to reappear on the other side, spiraling up the mountain.

"Why does _up_ always have to be so high?" Tygra asked no one in particular.

"The Book can be cryptic at times," Cheetara said. She raised her eyebrows at Lion-O. "Maybe you're misinterpreting the message."

"Wouldn't be the first time," he said, and Cheetara's eyes narrowed. He turned away, no longer affecting heartiness. "But I've learned my lesson."

Just like that, the mood soured like week-old milk.

"Have you?" Tygra snapped. "Because heading up there feels like another wild goose chase."

Lion-O scowled at him, at Cheetara. "When _you're_ king, you can do things your way. Now let's go."

Alone, he descended the ladder that would take him to the cargo hatch, either not caring if anyone was coming or fully expecting them to heel when called. They did, but not without dual whining from the kittens and a hurried, whispered argument between Cheetara and Tygra. Nobody followed orders gracefully, not even Panthro. The big general set his jaw and walked off without a sound.

"Come on, let's get this over with," Felline said, putting a paw on the backs of WilyKit and Kat's heads.

Both turned big golden eyes on her. "You don't really want to go up there, do you, Felline?" they asked in unison.

"No," she said, eyeing the cliff apprehensively. Lion-O had already reached the mossy incline and begun the hike. "But we have to."

"Says who?" Tygra asked, hearing her. "We need more information before we just go charging up into who knows what."

"I agree," Cheetara said.

Privately, so did Felline, but she frowned at them. "Yes, but he doesn't think so. Since your advice is falling on deaf ears, the best thing we can do is let him see for himself. Besides, none of us really know what's up there. What if he's right?"

"He won't be," Tygra said, entering the road next.

"Seriously? You're just going to pass judgment like that? Well, he won't listen to you as long as you're always badmouthing him, so why don't you shut up?" Felline said, losing her temper. "This is partly your fault."

"Don't take it out on Tygra," Cheetara said icily. "Lion-O is simply acting out of anger and jealousy. Why would you defend that sort of behavior?" Turning her back on Felline, she fell into step behind her boyfriend.

Felline bristled, tail stiff. Tygra was the one picking the fight, not her! She silently appealed to Panthro, but he didn't so much as look at her as he walked by. Fists clenched, Felline fell into line behind him, the kittens trotting at the rear.

The road, if that was what it was, was huge, large enough for two elephants to comfortably walk side by side without hunching over. Although clearly put there by some force, it wasn't as flat as it had seemed from the bottom, but rather stony and uneven. It smelled damp and old, like a forgotten cave that hadn't felt the tread of warm feet in years. The wind grew stronger, the air thinner, as they ascended. Lion-O marched ahead, never once looking back. To their right, in the bottom of a small canyon, the same swift, broad river Lion-O had fished in coursed through its own winding road. From the forests on its other side, the sounds of avians and insects drowned out the sound of water.

After a time, when nothing changed but their altitude, Tygra called, "Do you even know where you're leading us, Lion-O?"

Instead of answering, Lion-O walked faster, as if hoping to distance himself from them.

"Right into Mumm-Ra's hands if you ask me," Panthro rumbled quietly. He glanced around, muscles tight with tension. "We're totally exposed to attack on this route."

_Great_. Now that Panthro had brought it up, all the fur along the back of Felline's neck and arms started to prickle. A lizard attack would crown the day, wouldn't it?

However, Lion-O still did not speak.

The twins' labored breathing was growing louder. "How much higher can we go?" Kat groaned. He stopped to catch his breath, bracing his paws on his knees, forcing everyone but Lion-O to come to a halt.

"I'm more worried about the way down," WilyKit said. She and her brother peered at the dark river below. It had entered a true canyon, which was as deep as the mountain was tall, the river's banks nonexistent.

"Maybe we should consider turning around," Cheetara said, her eyes on the kittens. Then, as mildly as she could, she spoke to Lion-O. "What do you think?"

With a growl, Lion-O finally stopped and turned back. Felline had no idea what expressions their friends wore, but she couldn't keep the weariness and anxiety out of hers. She was tired, she was thirsty, and she was afraid that, once again, they were headed in the wrong direction. She wanted to wholeheartedly support Lion-O, but even she had her doubts. Lion-O sighed, as if on the verge of agreeing to return to the Tank, but something on the road ahead caught his eye. "I think," he said, and then sighed again, resigned. "We should stop here for a quick rest."

_Quick_ was the definition of WilyKit and Kat, who darted forward curiously. They went from frowns to smiles in a heartbeat and ran up the road as if they hadn't been on the verge of collapse a second ago. Then Felline caught the scent on the wind, which explained their delight.

"Candyfruit!" they hollered, laughing and cheering.

Four rubbery pink trees had claimed a portion of the road, protected from the worst of the wind and bathed in sunlight. Candyfruit juice, though too sweet for her tastes, was better than nothing for a parched throat. Eagerly, she started to for the bounty, Panthro right behind her. Things were looking up.

But then Tygra had to open his mouth. "First _good_ idea you've had all day," he said aggressively, scowling at his brother as he walked by. As soon as he passed Lion-O, the scowl turned into a self-satisfied smirk.

"Knock it off," Felline muttered under her breath, and then wanted to kick herself for being such a coward. Tygra, with his smaller ears, couldn't have heard her, but she didn't really want to chance setting things off again if she spoke louder. All the constant bickering was starting to wear on her, like a heavy weight on her shoulders. She longed to put the weight down.

Instead, she climbed a tree to its lower limbs, tucking herself at the intersection of two branches, which gave her easy access to the fruit hanging from a neighboring tree. With the corner of her eye, she watched Lion-O scale her tree, passing her clump of the ball-like fruit. He picked a blue one on the way.

"Lunch will be easy compared to finding the Stone," he said happily, reaching for a large, golden fruit.

He picked it, brought it to his mouth to take a bite, and WilyKat lifted it right out of his paw.

"Too slow, Your Highness," the cub said, grinning. He took an enormous bite, green juice staining the fur of his chin.

Then, while Lion-O was scowling at him, WilyKit took the blue fruit from him. "You really need to keep your eyes open," she said, and then giggled. Lightly, she hopped over to her brother, and both burst out laughing. They dug into their stolen fruit, grinned at each other's ridiculously full cheeks, and kept eating.

"Thanks," Lion-O said ungraciously. "I'll try to remember that."

He resumed climbing.

_Uh-oh_, Felline thought, her own meal forgotten as she watched him. The kittens hadn't meant any harm, but today probably wasn't the best day for their usual pranks. If she'd been closer, she would have just given him one of hers and have done with it, but he had set his sights on another blue candyfruit hanging precariously over the lip of the road. It was just out of reach, and he stretched for it, fangs bared.

"You always do things the hard way, Lion-O," Cheetara called from the ground. Unlike the others, she was calmly picking up the fallen fruit, which hadn't been sitting long enough to begin to rot.

_Yes, and that doesn't sound condescending at all_, Felline thought, taking another bite to keep herself from saying anything. She was still smarting over Cheetara's earlier comment. Why couldn't Cheetara, who was usually so wise, see that the more she and Tygra goaded him, the more Lion-O insisted on following his own way, no matter how difficult or stupid?

Lion-O got his claws on the blue fruit. Tygra's whip lashed out, snagged the fruit, and released it into the prince's waiting paw.

"Yah!" Lion-O exclaimed, startled. He hugged the tree. "Hey!"

"A king should never eat before his people," Tygra said with a sort of smiling sneer. Felline hadn't seen him there, nonchalantly perched a few branches above herself. He began to eat.

Instead of replying, Lion-O pushed on a branch with all of his strength, shaking the entire tree. Tygra and Felline both lost their balance, but while Felline arrested her fall at the sacrifice of her fruit, Tygra fell right out of the tree and landed with a grunt on the hard, stone ground.

"Or lose his temper," he added, pushing himself into a sitting position amid the ruin of candyfruit rinds and puddles of sticky juice.

"Lion-O!" Felline yelled before she could stop herself. She clung to the tree with her arms, a leg, and her chin, trying not to slide off the branch's smooth pink skin. Her claws dented but could not break it. "That wasn't fair! You never think about the consequences of your actions."

Lion-O dropped out of the tree, landing on his feet. "Oh, is that it?" he demanded. "You're all against me?"

"It's not us, kid. You're your own worst enemy," Panthro said gruffly but gently as he climbed down, Felline right behind him. He wasn't accusing anyone of anything, simply stating a fact as he saw it.

"He's right, Lion-O," Tygra said, but he was still smiling in an unkind way. "You may be the king, but that doesn't mean you can't learn something from us."

"It's all right to ask for help now and then, remember?" Felline put in, attempting to soften their criticism. To her dismay, he paid her no mind. Apparently, their heart to heart of the morning was ancient history, already forgotten. Lion-O glared at all of them, a cornered cat, back arched and eyes afire.

The _crack_ of a missile launching sent echoes thundering through the canyon. It slammed into the rock above their heads, incinerating one of the fruit trees. There was something sad about the way the fire ate through the pink branches, turning everything to black ash and orange embers.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN:** I am so excited about this episode! Mostly because I have an extra bit planned that I'm working on simultaneously. I just want to put out a little thank-you to all the people who have favorited/followed this story so far. Thank you!_

_Also, Reviewer Thanks! It's another bulk one because so many of you were united in liking the last chapter for its fluffiness. I can't even tell you how happy that makes me! X3 *heartheart* I couldn't stop giggling at your comments. To each of you, thank you so much for leaving a review! **Momochan77**, **Mooncloudpanther**, **CaptainCommanderLucy**, **The Night Whisperer**, **Darwin** (twice!), **Heart of the Demons**, **KelseyAlicia**, and **Blacktiger93**. I love you guys so much._

_Happily Yours,_

_Anne_


	6. Judgment Day, part three

"Ambush!" Lion-O shouted.

Two more warheads detonated. Flying debris engulfed Panthro and Felline. Coughing and choking, blinded by smoke, burning wood, and sharp-edged rocks, she stumbled right into a company of lizards. She never even got the chance to draw her weapon before they relieved her of it and forced restraints around her wrists. More missiles exploded, cloaking everything on the mountain pass in confusion. The lizards lined her up at gunpoint next to Panthro, his new arms also restrained, his expression putting a hungry comolbur to shame. She flexed her paws; although the restraints looked no more technologically advanced than bands of steel, she surmised they were low-level pulse emitters which had effectively incapacitated the big cat, or else, she was sure, there would be a whole lot of bloodied lizards littering the road.

Tygra tried to fight, but Addicus was ready for him. When Tygra uncoiled the blue whip with a flick of his arm, the hulking monkey grabbed it.

"Not gonna hide this time," he said, flattened lips curling up at the corners, and buried his pink fist in the prince's face. Tygra was knocked clean off his feet.

"Tygra!" Cheetara called. Before she made it more than three steps, Kaynar snatched her back with an orange-furred arm across her throat.

"You run like a girl," he told her, muzzle dropping open in an insane, high-pitched laugh.

Felline felt a flash of hope, for Snarf and the kittens were still free – but, no. The lizards headed them off, too.

Lion-O drew the Sword of Omens. He would have run to the twins, but Slithe fired at him from behind, striking the Sword's handguard. The laser blast blew the Sword out of Lion-O's paws and he toppled forward with a grunt. He regained his feet in time for Addicus and Kaynar to grab his arms, stretch them tight, and put him in a headlock.

It had been a perfectly executed attack. The cats, too busy fighting each other, had been effortlessly captured by their enemies. Horrified, Felline watched as Slithe shuffled up to their king and picked the Sword off the ground. It didn't matter that the hilt and Eye were shut tight – the scaly mutant should never have put his hands on it. Extending his long arm, he also took the Gauntlet of Omens off Lion-O's belt.

"We have the Sword and Gauntlet," Slithe gloated, yellow eyes gleaming. "Now, give us the Book!"

"I'd rather die," Lion-O rasped over Kaynar's arm.

Slithe's spiked tail whipped around, catching Lion-O across the cheek. Lion-O struck the ground hard, curling up with pain.

"You're willing to risk _your_ life for it," Slithe said, his pouchy face sullen, "but what about hers?"

He turned his head and fixed WilyKit with his reptilian smile.

The little wildcat gasped. Somehow, she'd gotten separated from her brother and Snarf, who were at that moment shoved to the ground at Felline's feet. Cheetara and Tygra were also restrained with the binders. None of them could do anything to help Kit, who stood alone at the edge of the cliff, fur on end, quaking from the top of her head to her small feet. Kat shook along with her, so silent that Felline wondered if he was breathing.

"Better not hurt her, Slithe," Lion-O growled, speaking with difficulty around what was sure to become a roar of rage if he lost control.

"I would never harm such an adorable creature," Slithe crooned. "Addicus, on the other hand . . ."

Kit didn't make a sound, her eyes and mouth stretched wide in a scream that seemed to have gotten stuck on the way out. The monkey leered at her. She was smaller than one of his bare arms; he could crush her skull like an egg in his hand, if he wished. He lifted his mace and held it above her head as if contemplating how best to prepare a meal.

Felline, beset by several lizards and their bayonets, couldn't move an inch, just like the others. They were several thousand feet up a sheer mountain in a confined pass, without an army of their own. No one could help WilyKit.

Except Lion-O. He moved like a striking snake, and snatched the Gauntlet out of Slithe's claws.

"Grab him!" Slithe cried.

If Lion-O was quick, Addicus was faster. Before the young king could touch him, he swung around and chopped the ground with his heavy mace, just missing Lion-O, whose handspring deposited him at the very lip of the cliff, twenty feet away from Kit.

"Whoa!" he said, struggling to keep his balance as the rock, weakened by the missile barrage, crumbled like dry cheese beneath his feet.

"Lion-O!" Kit shouted, her voice cracking.

She and the others watched, helpless, disbelieving, as an excited Kaynar bounded up behind Lion-O, put a paw in his back, and pushed.

"_Oop_sie," the jackalman said. Not once had he lost his grin.

Lion-O's yell filled the canyon, seeming to expand as the seconds ticked by, and then it faded.

Kaynar's tasseled ears flicked forward. "Think he'll land on his feet?" he asked Addicus mildly, as if asking for the time.

With all the boulders that had fallen with him, Felline heard exactly when Lion-O hit the water so far below. How deep was the river? Had the impact knocked him unconscious? There was no way to know. No way to –

"Fools!" Slithe snarled, wrenching Kaynar and Addicus aside so he could peer over the edge himself, in spite of the fact that they were both bigger than he was, the jackalman lean and tall, the monkey broad and burly. "He had the Gauntlet!"

– save him.

"You killed him," Tygra breathed, all cocky, self-assuredness leached out of his voice. He sounded faint and sick.

When Cheetara spoke their king's name, a well of grief opened behind Felline's ribcage, a whirlpool of emptiness that swept away her insides and left her cold and half alive, unable to speak, to cry, to do anything. She stared at nothing, lips parted, and then her knees smacked into the ground when her legs gave way.

Slithe also dropped to his knees, head moving as if his eyes were scouring the river for a sign of the lion. "He has the Gauntlet with the Spirit Stone. Get down there and find it!" he snarled at his troops.

Lion-O was dead. Slithe had not ordered his men to capture the cat – no, he wanted them to retrieve the Gauntlet. A tremble started in Felline's belly, just below the empty whirlpool. Long ago, she'd pretended to save Lion-O from drowning. Once, he'd saved her from the same fate. Events had seesawed back again, turning over coincidence and necessity, and there had been no one there to pull him out of the river. This time, the water had claimed his life.

The tremble grew, seizing her limbs one by one. At Tygra's side, Snarf released a weak, hissing sob. Felline tried to pet him, but she couldn't force her paw to reach him. She slumped back, lacking the words to express the grief that consumed them all. It was a familiar place for her spirit to go, into the quiet emptiness where speech had no meaning.

Lion-O was dead.

..::~*~::..

"You!" a lizard shouted at WilyKit, the only one of the cats who had not yet been restrained. "Get over here, now!"

Kit, who appeared to have been drawing something on a flat rock with a charred stick of bark, got up and scurried over without complaint, joining her anxious brother. The stick disappeared into one of the pouches at her waist. The binders snapped shut on her bony wrists.

Several of the snake-head hovercraft came to collect them off the mountain. The ThunderCats allowed themselves to be herded onto one, their paws bound in front of them, rifles and bayonets at their backs, Mumm-Ra's three imposing generals overseeing all. Felline stood between Snarf and Cheetara at the nose of the deck. Snarf had stopped crying. The wind of the craft's speed, cool but not as cold as it had been on the road above, made it hard to breathe but also dried the fur of her face. It combed through her hair, pulling strands of it loose. Her tail brushed against Panthro's shins, Cheetara's hair washed across Tygra's paws. Kat had eyes only for his sister.

"Lion-O can't be gone," WilyKit said miserably, scrubbing the backs of her paws across her eyes. "I – I won't believe it."

"It's okay, sis. We're gonna get through this," WilyKat said, but Kit had started to cry, softly, like a newborn cub.

Cheetara bent down to the twins' level, her expression fierce. "There will be time for mourning, as soon as we take care of them."

She jerked her chin back. Felline risked a backwards glance. Stout Slithe stood with his freakishly long arms crossed over his chest, his thick tail keeping him steady, but Kaynar exuded ease and confidence, paws slack at his sides, letting the wind tease his beard and furry ears. The jackalman smelled like a dog, only wilder, like the tang of a hearth fire after it had burned down someone's home. Like the monkey, he wore a brown pelt breechcloth, leather bracers, and shin guards. His spaulder seemed to be made of the upper jaw of some fanged, horned beast. Addicus's helmet sported one small horn, its chin strap flapping free – he seemed to have no neck, his head sitting low between massive shoulders. Pale where Kaynar was fiery orange, he had tied trailing maroon ribbons to his biceps, and he'd noticed her looking. His yellow eyes narrowed. The tip of a smooth tongue touched his lower lip. Felline shivered and faced front.

"But how?" Tygra asked Cheetara. The wind was so noisy it would disguise their words.

"You always wanted to be king," Panthro rumbled. "Well, now you are. Just hope you got a plan."

Thick black brows lowered over dark eyes, and Tygra didn't respond. At least, not at first. Felline could practically see the scores of scenarios he was running through his head, discarding, modifying, selecting. As quietly as possible, he then told them the plan.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN:** Christmas is over. The new year has begun. CC shall continue on!_

_Reviewer Thanks! **Momochan77** (Originally, I wanted her to defend him more, like she did in "The Duelist and the Drifter," but I realized that at this point, she's got her misgivings, too. At any rate, I'm glad you liked that she did, even if it was just for a bit), **Heart of the Demons** (LOL, thanks. Unfortunately, it means that I perpetrate a lot of drama IRL, too), **KelseyAlicia** (Isn't it funny how we always remember that first episode of anything we see so strongly?), **The Night Whisperer** (Haha, I wondered how people would like that part! Glad that you did. :3), **CaptainCommanderLucy** (Thanks!), **Mooncloudpanther** (Hee, anytime, sweetie, any time!), **Darwin** (Too true!), and **Blacktiger93** (Here you go! Sorry about the wait . . .). To all of you, THANK YOU for the reviews! They truly make my day that much happier. X3_

_Until Next Time,_

_Anne_

_Oh, P.S. If you haven't checked out "Dissonance" by WAR-Operative and "Giftfic Exchange: Thundercats" by Mooncloudpanther, please do. They've both written me beautiful giftfics starring Felline. It's pretty awesome. Thanks!_


	7. Judgment Day, part four

After they'd traveled some miles, a second hovercraft zoomed up next to them. The lizards aboard didn't look happy.

"Nothing?" Slithe rasped.

"No trace, General Slithe," the commander responded. "Probably washed out to the Great Sea."

Felline closed her dry, aching eyes. The sea. Endless and blue. Cold and empty. Like her.

"Mumm-Ra will not be pleased," Slithe muttered. He waved dismissively at the commanding lizard, and the second hovercraft peeled away and flew off onto other business. Probably to report back to Mumm-Ra.

Kaynar appeared at Felline's shoulder. He leaned around her, yellow and red eyes bright with laughter. "But surely these cute kittens will cheer him up," he said.

When WilyKit, Kat, and Snarf froze up under his stare, he giggled madly. Felline's heart pounded in her chest like a prisoner trying to break free. She hated feeling so helpless; if the jackalman chose to attack one of the kittens, she wouldn't be able to stop him even though she was right there between them. He would cut her down without losing his grin. Besides, she had to wait. Wait. Just wait . . .

"If there's anything left of them," Addicus corrected him, laughing his deep-chested monkey laugh.

"I can assure you, Addicussss, there won't be," Slithe said, his forked tongue lingering on the name in his fury. He raised his rifle and aimed it at Tygra. "Yours will be the shortest and last reign of any cat king."

Tygra mumbled something under his breath that even Felline couldn't catch, much less Slithe. She lowered her head, hoping Kaynar wouldn't see her expression. This was it.

"What's that?" Slithe growled.

"I said," Tygra yelled, fangs flashing in the sunlight, "that I'd rather die a king than live forever as a mindless lackey!"

At that, Slithe decked him with the butt of his rifle.

"Well, you got one thing goin' for ya," Tygra said, grimacing around the swelling in his lip. "You hit harder than the monkey."

Addicus growled, "You wanna see how hard I hit?" Then he picked Tygra up bodily and threw him from the moving hovercraft, leaping after him with a spring of his powerful legs.

The hovercraft came to an abrupt halt. All eyes were on the pair on the ground; Kaynar, giggling, asked, "Can I play, too?" before he hopped down to take his turn at beating Tygra.

Aboard the craft, tiny, clever fingers flew. Tygra may have been buying them time, but he wasn't going to last long under the brutal blows raining down on him. Silent as shadows, Kit and Kat picked the locks, and the rest of the ThunderCats were free.

"Hi," Kit sang at the jackalman and the monkey, waving a pair of binders over her head.

Kat waved a second pair, grinning. "Hey, there!"

Both generals looked up, Kaynar with a furious snarl, Addicus with a ridiculously dumb, slack-jawed stare.

Panthro, Cheetara, and Felline were already on the move. While the others went to help Tygra, Felline dropped to all fours and scampered across the deck, wresting her gunblade from a surprised lizard. She rolled to one knee and snapped off a shot, disarming Slithe.

"Lizards! Attack!" he shrieked.

Felline scavenged the rest of their weapons, tossing WilyKat's flink to him, while Cheetara shot by her in a blur, disarming every lizard on the craft. WilyKit happily accepted her flupe, and then they each dove out of the way as Slithe lumbered toward them. His yellow eyes narrowed, fixing on Felline.

Then his head snapped back from an unseen blow. Tygra appeared out of the air in front of him.

"That's for me," he said, drawing his arm back for another strike, "and _that's_ for Lion-O!"

Felline bared her teeth in a fierce grin. This was it. This was what the ThunderCats could do when they worked together.

Now, they just had to get the Sword.

Addicus grabbed Tygra, and they vanished over the side of the craft for the second time, boxing. Felline looked around for Slithe, flicking her gunblade open. She parried a slash from a lizard bayonet, and then dropped and spun, sweeping the soldier's legs out from beneath him and sending him over the side.

A large hand grasped the back of her neck, fingers knotting in her fur, and twisted painfully. Slithe, who had come up behind her unnoticed, lifted her by the scruff, ignoring how she thrashed and clawed at him, and heaved her overboard. She slammed into the ground.

"Forget the cats!" Slithe shouted from the craft. "The Sword is all that matters."

Obviously reluctant, Kaynar and Addicus both jumped aboard, abandoning their fights with Panthro and Tygra.

"You have your lives," Slithe hissed. "But they're of little good as long as I have this."

The Sword flashed in the sun, and he started to laugh.

Tygra and Felline opened fire a second too late. The hovercraft lifted, tilted, and turned, and their blasts bounced harmlessly off the underside. Tygra didn't give up, however. He ran after the retreating craft, still firing, until it put on a burst of speed and left him far behind.

Panthro offered a metal paw to Felline, and she took it, allowing him to pull her to her feet.

She shook her head in apology, pressing an arm to her bruised ribs, willing the pain to subside. She wouldn't be able to speak right then even if she had words to say.

"Don't beat yourself up," Panthro rumbled, his eyes on the horizon. "They've done enough of that for us."

She wheezed, trying not to laugh. It wasn't like there was anything funny about this situation, and if she started laughing, she might break down and cry.

"Your brother would be proud if he could see you now," Cheetara said, coming up behind Tygra.

"This isn't over yet," he angrily replied. "We're getting that Sword back."

The new Lord of the ThunderCats squared his broad shoulders and began to jog after the departed hovercraft, Cheetara by his side. Panthro fell into a lope behind them, Felline stretching into a run to keep up with him, the twins and Snarf sprinting at her heels. If the ground, the sky, and the backs of her friends smeared wetly together like paint, she tried not to mind it. She kept running into the blur, telling herself that they weren't leaving him behind, that they were heading for his legacy, while the tears dripped unchecked from her face.

..::~*~::..

The desert at night was full of moonlight, sand, and perpetual lightning.

Crawling on all fours, Felline scaled the dune and slipped in between Panthro and Tygra, stretching out on her belly to peer over its wind-sculpted edge. To her surprise, they'd been much nearer the enemy stronghold than any of them, barring Panthro, had realized; it had taken little more than three hours to come this far. Still, she was tired. Blowing sand clogged her fur, got in her eyes and nose, but she said nothing about it. Instead, she burrowed into the dune, hoping to soak up some of its warmth. The lightning made her scalp tingle.

"Mumm-Ra's temple," Cheetara murmured from the far right. "It's even scarier than I thought."

Felline thought she understood what Cheetara meant. There was something in the air, apart from the perpetual lightning, that felt ominous and heavy, like a poisonous gas or deadly smoke. But it was only sand, gritty and billowing on the wind. The temple itself rose out of the dunes, contemptuously brushing off the desert's attempts to swallow it. It was huge. It was black. It was a pyramid, centered between four tall, angled towers, around the tops of which the lightning gathered in dancing spheres. On the desert floor, hovercraft moved slowly through the storm, passing around the black silhouettes of lizards on patrol.

"I nearly died in that pit, thanks to Grune," Panthro rumbled. He looked over Felline's head. "Sure you want me to help us get in? Getting out was hard enough."

"I don't like it either, General, but we have to get the Sword of Omens back," Tygra said. Time had done nothing to dim his anger, burning hot and clean; he was driven by the grief simmering below it.

Panthro didn't offer any further resistance. "There's an air shaft on the north side," he said instead. "Dangerous, but it's your call."

His mismatched eyes slid sideways. "King," he added.

The phrase, _Better late than never_, floated through Felline's mind, but she shooed it away. There was nothing "better" about this situation. Even if they had all finally learned to work as a team, it was too late. Lion-O would never reap the benefits. It was possible none of them would. This was a suicide mission, and they all knew it, but they had no other choice.

Tygra lowered Panthro's spyglass. "We need to take out the guards," he said.

Taking that as an order, Panthro nodded, stood, and jogged down the dune, letting the slope pull him into a run that would take the lizards by surprise.

Cheetara glanced over at Tygra, her eyes big and dark in the night. "You okay?"

"I always told him that I should be king," he murmured, anguished. "I never wanted it like this."

"The only thing we can do now is finish the job he started," she answered. She rose up and followed Panthro down the dune.

Felline got to her feet, also, and sprinted after her, not wanting to see Tygra's tortured expression. He was the king now; she would follow him to the end, but she couldn't let herself get lost in his suffering as well as her own. Instead, she focused on the electricity in the air that made her fur crackle and snap with each stride. She kept a wary eye on the sky, also – the swirling black clouds were lit from within by the constant blue and purple lightning. Since the nexus of the storm was the apex of the pyramid, she doubted it was natural.

On the flat plain before the pyramid, hidden by the gusting sand, she drew the gunblade. She couldn't risk shooting the lizards, or giving them time to open fire, because the noise would bring reinforcements. Summoning Cheetara's coaching, she thought of nothing but strike, slash, block, and parry, disarming lizards one by one. After a few hushed minutes, Panthro added the last couple of limp bodies to the pile, eliciting a drugged-sounding hiss and grunt from the incapacitated reptiles at the bottom.

"Nice work, General," Tygra said.

Felline folded the gunblade and returned it to its holster. She watched, curious in spite of herself, while Panthro walked up to the great, black wall and placed one paw, palm flat, against it.

Red light flared in a thin line, a perfect circle around his paw. The section of wall inside the circle sank inward, or maybe he pushed it in. At the contact, countless more red lines blazed across the black wall, streaming at angles, making abrupt turns, crossing, intersecting, revealing a complex pattern in the darkness. Everybody froze as the lines extended into the desert sands under their feet. In the center of the pattern, another section of wall sank inward, this one in the shape of a triangle and large enough to drive the original ThunderTank through. It then broke into three plates, which slid smoothly aside, allowing them entry.

It was darker inside, but not by much. Panthro peered around the corner, and then darted inside, Felline and the others on his heels.

"So far so good," Panthro said, his voice echoing in the metallic corridor.

"My plan just may work after all," Tygra answered, sounding more cheerful than he had all night.

Of course, he'd spoken too soon. They reached the end of the corridor, which opened into a wider room, when red lights in the ceiling began blinking on and off in time to a klaxon's screaming. A five-lizard patrol appeared out of another corridor, rifles in their hands.

"Whiskers," Tygra whispered.

They couldn't risk being seen so soon, so they hurried backward, into the corridor still open to the storm outside, and pressed themselves against the smooth wall.

"Now what, King?" Cheetara asked over the blaring noise.

"Just . . . just let me think," Tygra said. His face was awash in red, darker over his forehead and the bridge of his nose. The strain, which had started to show before they'd escaped from Slithe, was clearly getting to him.

"Don't worry," WilyKit piped up. "I've got this."

She danced into the pentagonal room, tail and dagged skirt swishing. With her flupe at her lips and the lizards approaching on the quick-march, she began to play. It was a simple melody, but it teased at the corners of the brain. One by one, the lizards drooped – their eyelids, their heads, and their rifles.

As a group, Felline and the others rounded the corner.

"Way to go, Kit," Tygra praised her.

The little wildcat kept playing, dancing around the dozing lizards. She didn't look frightened at all, Felline noticed; this was familiar territory for her. Unhurried, WilyKit joined everyone else in another corridor and there, stopped playing. In thirty seconds, the alarm shut off, but they didn't stick around to see what the lizards made of the situation.

"We can't keep running around in the open like this," Tygra hissed in frustration. Felline felt like she was folding up, tighter and tighter, with each corner they took, each new direction they tried, and the pyramid presented them with hypnotizing uniformity. Cold metal walls, slippery metal floors, forty-five-degree angles, and dull red lights. And through it all, a strange smell. The air of the desert didn't mix well with the air of the pyramid. It occurred to Felline that they were breathing air that did not belong to Third Earth and she put out a paw to steady herself.

Then she shot a sharp glance at it. She'd touched not the solid metal paneling, but a grate, perhaps five feet by four. The funny smell was oozing out of it.

A ventilation shaft.

_Snyar_? Snarf asked, bringing the others to a halt. If not for him, they might not have known she'd stopped running, but she refused to think about what would have happened if they'd left her behind. Instead, she drew the gunblade and swung it open.

"Felline?" Kat asked, but she waved him back.

She struck, once, twice, and leaped out of the way. The metal grate clanged on the floor. Sheared screw heads bounced out of sight.

"Brilliant," Tygra approved, squeezing her shoulder as he climbed inside.

They tumbled inside. Tygra and Panthro fitted the grate back over the hole, and Felline set the beam of her rifle low and steady in order to weld it back in place. They set off as a group in the cramped shaft. It was all so surreal, Lion-O dead, the alien air invading her body, crawling after Panthro in the dark. The shaft didn't run straight or horizontal. Slowly, they were rising within the pyramid.

"Where is it that we're going?" Panthro rumbled.

"To Mumm-Ra," Tygra said from up ahead.

"Then angle left."

After a few claustrophobic minutes in which the shaft widened enough to let most of them stand, Kit asked, "What's that?"

"Yeah. I hear it, too," Kat said.

Felline canted her ears. She heard chanting. Dry lizard voices, low and throaty, hissing in rhythm. It was coming from another grate, this one the size of cargo bay doors. It wasn't nearly as secure, either, held in place by flimsy clamps at either end. Tygra dashed past it. He crouched on the far side, leaving room for the rest of them. The grate angled outward, and they stayed well back, unwilling to let the animals in the room below catch sight of them. Felline crouched next to WilyKit and pricked her ears forward.

It appeared to be some kind of ceremony. Lizards draped in white robes and hoods stood along the outer edge of a raised dais, facing inward. Within a red circle, Kaynar, Slithe, and Addicus stood. In front of them, Mumm-Ra hunched in his tattered cloak, eyes glowing like coals in his gray face. He raised bandaged, bony arms. The chanting ceased, and he spoke.

"At long last, the king of the cats is dead, and the Eye of Thundera will be mine once again."

There it was. The Sword of Omens, floating over a triangular pedestal in the center of the dais.

"And this time," Mumm-Ra breathed, "no spell will keep me from the Stone, for within these walls, my powers are immeasurable."

On cue, the lizards resumed chanting, and Mumm-Ra joined in, speaking words that were nothing more than sinister-sounding gibberish to Felline, but they were obviously words of power. The Sword began to spin like the needle in a compass, around and around, and she rubbed her arms to keep the fur from rising; somehow, without it making a sound, she could tell that it was in distress.

"I can't see anything. What's going on?" WilyKat demanded in a half whisper.

"A thousand bad things, kid," Panthro growled.

Cheetara glanced at Tygra. "What d'you wanna do?"

"Drop in for a surprise attack," he answered matter-of-factly.

They all stared at him, but Panthro was the one who burst out with, "And land in the middle of trouble?"

"It's not a perfect plan, but we owe it to Lion-O to try," Tygra said pointedly. He stood up, kicked out the grate, and jumped. Whip lashing the air, he triumphantly called, "ThunderCats, ho!"

Felline closed her eyes, breathing deeply around the sudden prickling in her sinuses. She was scared. She was exhausted. She wasn't going to let her friends down. Drawing the gunblade, she leaped after Tygra and touched down on her toes, knees bending to absorb the impact.

"Keep them from the Sword!" the shriveled figure on the dais cried.

At once, the lizard-priests moved to intercept, but they were unarmed, clearly not warriors. Felline kicked one in the stomach, whisked around, and grabbed another by his oddly hot arm. Twisting down and then back up, she sent him somersaulting away, where he blundered into his fellows like a cannonball through a wooden fence. All around, the reptilian priests were falling to the swift ferocity of the cats.

"You were fools to come here," Mumm-Ra rasped, and the next thing she knew, Felline was engulfed by his dark sorcery. The purple lightning seized her like thousands of fiery pins. It was pain unimaginable, instantly unbearable, and it lasted for eons.

She wondered if she was dying. With the screams of her friends drilling into her ears, she silently pleaded for the pain to stop. Eventually and to her surprise, it did, leaving a buzzing black numbness crowding out her thoughts.

"No more delays! Take them to the cells," Mumm-Ra commanded, his words breaking against the blackness, waves against the sand. They were gritty around the edges, hard to hold, and she fought against them, her cheek pressed into the floor. "I'll deal with them once I destroy the Sword."

The floor beneath her cheek tilted and fell away, taking her stomach with it, but it was only more lizards, lifting her onto their round shoulders.

Faintly, from somewhere far away, she heard WilyKit murmur, "Bought him some time."

"Bought who some time?" WilyKat groggily replied. The sound of his voice was sad, and it grew fainter; she was being carried away. "There's no one coming to save us."

With this knowledge piercing her already battered heart, Felline surrendered to unconsciousness.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN:** Argh, these scenes keep breaking off in weird places! I'm squishing two episodes into one chapter, and cutting out half of them, but that means the story flow is all stilted. Compensating by putting up extra-long ones. :3 I hope that's a fair trade. Also, I deeply regret how closely I'm transcribing the episodes, but it has to be done. Please forgive me!_

_Reviewer Thanks! **Darwin **(Thank you, chica!), **The Night Whisperer **(How's this? :3), **Heart of the Demons **(Thank you! Check back around Friday, okay? lol), **Mooncloudpanther **(Gosh. Thank you so much! *blush*), **KelseyAlicia **(Indeed!), **CaptainCommanderLucy **(Thank you!), **Momochan77 **(I am so happy you liked it! I like angst. I haven't been writing near enough of it lately, lol), and **Blacktiger93** (I don't know for sure! I'd like him to, but it also seems like a super-awkward thing to talk about - by the way, I just spent all night hanging out with someone who looks like you, but isn't you. hahaha!). Thank you so much for the reviews, guys! Please keep them coming!_

_Have a wonderful day, my darlings,_

_Anne_

_P.S. I will be uploading a new Bonus Theater very soon, before publishing the next CCv2 update. It isn't a giftfic this time, but an extra scene of my own that can't be told within the events of this chapter. It should be read right after this and before the next update, if read at all. :3_


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